XLVII. There are other truths not equally self-evident, such as these, that there are not more Gods than one; that no visible thing, neither the world, nor the heavens, nor the sun, nor the air is God; that the world, and the matter of which it is formed, have not existed from all eternity, but were made by God. So that we see the knowledge of these truths disfigured, and almost entirely obliterated among many nations by the lapse of time. And this might the more easily happen, as there were no legal provisions made to preserve the purity of these truths, which were not considered as essential to the very existence of all religion. The law indeed given to that people, who were instructed in the clear knowledge of these truths, by the mouths of the prophets, by miracles seen with their own eyes, or brought to their ears by the reports of the most undoubted testimony, that law, though it expresses the greatest abhorrence of the worship of false gods, does not inflict the punishment of death upon all convicted of that crime, but only in particular instances, where they have seduced others into idolatry,--or where a state has introduced the worship of unknown Gods,--or where the true worship of God, and obedience to his laws have been forsaken for the worship of the stars, which St. Paul calls serving the creature above the creator, an offence, which was, for some time, punished among the descendants of Esau. Those too who offered their children to Moloch, that is, to Saturn, were punished with death. Yet the Canaanites, and the neighbouring nations, who had long been sunk into the most depraved superstitions, were not consigned by God to immediate punishment, but were left to fill up the measure of their crimes. And there were other nations, where, in the language of Scripture, God winked at the times of this ignorance. Where men have had no means of arriving at the knowledge of a true God, as their superstitions and errors are excusable, so where, in despite of knowledge, they have deified Daemons, and vices, which they knew to be such, their superstitions are not to be called errors, but impieties. And no less impious is the supposed homage, that is paid to God with the blood of innocent human victims, and Darius king of the Persians, and Gelo king of Syracuse, are commended for abstaining from such practices. Plutarch informs us of some barbarians, who would have been punished by the Romans for offering human victims to the deity, had they not pleaded the antiquity of the custom, which was admitted as an excuse, though they were strictly enjoined not to follow the same custom in future.